


the hero's shoulders

by dez (sawasawako), sawasawako



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Other, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26338144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawasawako/pseuds/dez, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawasawako/pseuds/sawasawako
Summary: full disclosure, this fic is inspired by the song of achilles and is also the product of a few inter-related ideas i've been nursing for the better part of this year. if you've followed my blog since March you might know what i'm talking about. this is my first ever attempt at writing a multi-chapter fic so bear with me as i (inevitably) muddle my way through the process lol. i'm not fully satisfied with this first chapter, but i don't want to tinker with it any longer than i already have, so this is it.i hope you enjoyed it, and hopefully you picked up on some of the references and thematic threads i've interspersed throughout the chapter ;)
Comments: 50
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

_"the knives in the kitchen are singing_  
_for blood, but we are the crossroads, my little outlaw..."_

* * *

The sea is a restless rhythm that night, tossing and turning, breathing in like the heave of giant lungs, never quite relaxing. Waves ripple across the surface, smooth one minute and rough the next, like they can’t make up their mind. They make a sound like a low churning, swift and dark and uneven, goaded by the wind and the moon. The sky is overcast, and thunder rumbles in the distance. A warning. A portent.

Deep below the tides, Poseidon paces his throne room. 

His palace walls glisten like shells, illuminated only by the faint glow of his trident and the bioluminescent creatures that lurk in the alien depths of the ocean. But nothing here is alien to the green-eyed god, ruler of the seas. Even the smallest pebble on the ocean floor, the dullest nub of coral, the most reclusive of prey and predator, bends to the hand of the father of horses, with one flick of his mighty wrist. 

They watch now, as he walks the length of the throne room and back, brow furrowed into a pensive scowl. 

Tumult hovers just beneath the surface, his strong, sharp features masking the stir of ancient power––the same elegant geometry that shapes the faces of his Olympian relatives. Like the terrain he governs, his legible complexion hides a great unknown. The logic of the sea mirrors the logic of its god. 

The god is turning an idea over in his head, playing with it. His dark eyes, reflecting the shifting depths around him, hold a glint to them, not unlike the sharpness found in the gaze of a certain grey-eyed goddess. 

The idea in his mind is taking shape, moving steadily from a question to a claim. A stone being smoothed by waves. 

_Kleos._

It is a weight, an echo. A shiver runs through the water, as if jolted from stasis, now awakening. Murmurs like shadows move in the darkness, animate it, and it is as if the sea suddenly remembers itself––its age, its history, its power. Something yet untamed. The sky’s unpredictable twin. 

Poseidon grips his trident, which glows like a sword blade, casting the sculpture of his face in angled shadow and light. His eyes pierce through the watery darkness, like a streak of moonlight cutting across a rippling lake. 

His lips curve around a single word, an intonation, a quiet name.

_Perseus._

  
  


* * *

  
  


In the dream, Percy stands in a chamber, surrounded by mosaic.

Bodies twist along the wall in a tangle of limbs and weaponry, reaching towards and away from one another like figures in an oil painting. Their faces are hewn with precision, the entirety of the human emotional spectrum splayed across tiled, static features. One warrior is caught mid-wail, mouth agape and grotesque, another’s eyes leap with triumph. Some wear plumed helmets, faces hidden under armour, anonymous members of anonymous armies; others are left strikingly bare, for the viewer to recognise.

Achilles. Heracles. Odysseus. Paris. Agamemnon. Theseus. Percy recognises them all.

The gods are there, too, life-sized and larger than life. 

Aphrodite and her deceptive serenity, a slender figure in the background; Athena and her piercing grey eyes, an apparition on the battlefield; Zeus and his thunderous build, presiding over them all. Ares, Dionysus, Apollo, Poseidon. Their godhood infuses the mural, brings it to life. 

Monsters figure in the scene as well, scattered amongst mortal bodies, slaying and being slayed. 

The Minotaur. The Hydra. _Dracaenae_. Cyclopes.

Formidable, but outshined by the feats of heroes and warriors. They exist to furnish the image of heroes, their infamy an ugly foil against that of their graceful counterparts, who are wreathed in gold. 

_Kleos_ , Percy thinks. 

That’s what the mosaic depicts. The performance of great deeds, the moments that will be set in stone and live forever, displayed on rich-toned tiles that fit together like puzzle pieces. They catch the low light of the chamber and sing.

Percy stands in the presence of memory and can’t help but listen, can’t help but be awed, engrossed in the spectacle of it. There is something undeniable about the portrait, an unspoken truth that transcends flaws and folly and human fallibility.

It is the promise of greatness, the flame of idealism that animates mortal endeavour. It is the hope of achievement, the quixotism of dreams and enterprise and the desire for consummation, ironically and quintessentially human. You can see it in the way Achilles’ feet touch the ground, like a lover’s kiss. You can see it in every turn of Heracles’ body, taut as a bowstring and shot through with strength. You can see it in Odysseus’ gaze, a flash of cunning penetrating through schemes and chaos.

The drive is contagious, the ambitions and motivations of the characters leaping out of the flat tiles and pulling you in, as if saying, _Don’t you want this, too? You deserve it._

For a moment, Percy almost agrees.

Yet, as he gazes at the tableau, he finds that there is something melancholic there that is unspoken, too. It is a phantom that haunts the battlefield, a shadow behind the wall. It taints the picture like imperceptible cracks in the tiles.

Percy sees it in the toppling bodies, in the stricken eyes and half-opened mouths, in the trampled ground and the unnamed. He sees it in the details that the eye does not first notice––etchings of fear, obscured by the sure strokes of battle stoutness; the twist in Achilles’ features, unmistakable once you catch it; the inexorable line of Zeus’ stare. 

The ache in Percy’s chest feels familiar, well-worn. 

He is not a stranger to the landscape. He has had his fair share of battles, his own taste of war. He has watched his friends live and die, and then live again in memory and in the stars. In mourning.

A girl with a silver circlet in her dark hair, her gaze turned towards the sky. A boy with strong hands and an even stronger heart, telling him to go, asking to be left behind. A girl in crooked battle armour falling, the realisation always a stuttering step too late. A lost boy finding himself again at the edge of oblivion, spear hand trembling. 

_Don’t let it happen again._

Percy stares at the mosaic, a tangle of emotions in his chest. 

_Be glorious_ , the image seems to say. Athena’s gaze bores through the cement. _To make up for it._

To make up for what?, Percy thinks. 

_To make up for the fact that it’s you._

Percy feels something coil in the pit of his stomach. His heart beats, his hands lay useless at his sides. 

The mosaic begins to crumble, slowly then all at once, disintegrating in chunks before Percy’s eyes like brittle clay, taking the heroes with it. The glossy tiles collapse into grey debris, erasing limbs and shields and spears, Achilles broken rubble on the ground.

A rushing sound seeps in to fill the space, and the temperature drops.

Without looking, Percy immediately knows where he is. 

There is a familiar stirring in his gut, as if an invisible safe had opened and whatever was inside could now be accessed. 

The smell of saltwater fills the air, rugged and elemental, almost metallic. Percy’s senses sharpen like the tuning of an instrument, a stone emerging on the shore, cut by the wind and tides. 

The sea was suddenly close, and summonable.

He is surrounded by water, dark and unforthcoming, but Percy is no stranger to these depths. The ocean recognises him, beckons and pulls, and Percy follows. 

The water feels like an embrace, a force field. It is blood that runs in his veins, a reservoir of power that is within his reach, that bends to his command, a truth he barely dares look in the eye. 

_Percy,_ a deep and familiar voice rumbles. His name reverberates, softened by the water, but carrying a hard register. 

Something is different about it this time. 

Percy thinks he detects a steeliness that was never there before, a discernible sharpness that puts him on edge.

“Dad?” he says. Percy’s own voice is muffled by the water, and he can hear his uncertainty fraying its edges.

Waves roll and glide over one another, as if the water itself were alive. Percy can feel its energy, its closeness. 

_There is a prophecy,_ the disembodied voice––Poseidon, presumably––intones, and it feels like the ocean is speaking instead of a person. The words shock Percy, lock him in.

“A prophecy?” he echoes, his voice sounding far away.

Suddenly, Percy no longer feels so comfortable in the ocean depths. The darkness seems to tug at him, an eager shadow. His shoulders feel heavy, like the water is pressing in on him.

 _Yes,_ the sea ripples. _A prophecy that says you will finally put your powers to good use. That you will rise above, and be great like those before you._

Percy can feel his skin prickle, can hear his heart pounding in his chest. He no longer feels the cool, comforting weight of the ocean, just the enormous depth of it encroaching upon him, suddenly oppressive, closing in like low-hanging clouds before a storm. 

It’s an unnerving sensation, almost foreign. Percy instinctively resists––but you can’t fight your own element. 

When Percy speaks, he feels the lump lodged in his throat. “I don’t understand.”

The darkness glistens. _You will, soon enough._

It is spoken like a command, cold and detached, remote to Percy’s ears.

The dream crumbles, and he wakes up with a jolt.

Percy finds himself sitting upright in his bed in a cold sweat, restored to the darkness of his room. Poseidon’s foreboding words echo in his head. 

Percy rakes a hand through his messy hair and takes in a deep breath. 

Another prophecy.

He closes his eyes, tries to sit with the information.

As usual, the dream sequences were cryptic and ominous; Percy is left feeling both intimidated and confused. Even worse, there is a lingering spool of ache in his chest from the memories of war, and something else––something wider, more nebulous. A grief that is not local to him, that seems to belong to history. An inherited grief. It feels ancestral almost, mythic.

Percy doesn’t know what it is, or what to make of it, only that it weighs on him like an heirloom; a burden he doesn’t want to bear.

He falls back on his pillow and endeavours to ignore it all. 

Soon, tiredness creeps in and helps Percy forget about the new yet somehow strangely familiar weight on his shoulders, if only temporarily.

He doesn’t have any more dreams that night, but ghosts of the past seem to haunt his consciousness.

* * *

Two weeks go by, and Percy almost forgets about his disturbing prophetic dream.

Two weeks of baking with your mother and sweating it out at Camp and hanging out with your friends can really take your mind off things––even ominous, troubling new prophecy-related things. 

It’s the summer of his senior year, and in many ways it feels like all of the summers that have come before, with the added bonus of not having the end of the world hanging on your shoulders. It was Percy’s first ordinary summer in what feels like a very long time. 

Well… as ordinary as a summer can be for a demigod, that is. 

At least Percy got to try out some of the non-training facilities at Camp Half-Blood, though granted there are not many.

He and Annabeth spent a whole afternoon in the strawberry fields, picking the juiciest ones along the rows until they got bored, which, unsurprisingly, didn’t take very long. 

It took about ten minutes, to be exact. 

The diligent strawberry-picking ended when Percy tripped over a mound of soil and fell, face-first into the fertilised dirt. He made a very unflattering sound as his foot caught against packed earth and he pitched forward. Annabeth turned around just in time to see his cheek hit the ground.

There was a long pause within which they could hear the ambient noise of Camp activities in the background––and then Annabeth burst out laughing.

Percy groaned against the dirt. He got back up with some difficulty and swiped roughly at the dirt on his face and clothes, grumbling the whole way through. 

Annabeth was on a roll now––she couldn’t stop laughing. She was nearly on the ground herself, chortling.

“I’m hilarious, I know,” Percy muttered. 

“I––I’m sorry,” Annabeth managed, in between laughs. “It’s just. The way you fell. I mean, in the middle of a strawberry field? That’s hilarious.” 

And then she was off again.

Percy tried to stay upset, but any ill feeling he had evaporated the moment he got up from the ground. He watched Annabeth’s laughing face from the corner of his eye and smiled, despite himself. “That’s because my comedic timing is impeccable,” he said, shrugging and putting his hands up like, _What can you do?_

Annabeth’s laughter had begun to subside, which meant she could look sideways at Percy and roll her eyes. “Sure, Seaweed Brain.”

“Hey, you should be grateful for the entertainment I provide, without even having to try,” said Percy, self-mockingly. “Strawberry-picking was getting boring, anyway.”

Annabeth shook her head and stepped over a row of strawberry shrubs to stand next to Percy. She reached up to brush some dirt he’d missed off of his forehead, a small smile playing on her lips. “You’re cute,” she noted, and Percy heard the genuine feeling behind the sarcasm.

“I’m flattered,” he said, matching her tone.

Annabeth laughed, and Percy’s chest fluttered. Good butterflies, the feeling he always associated with Annabeth.

“Let’s get out of here, then,” she said.

Percy agreed, and followed her lead.

* * *

Of course, normalcy can never last, not for Percy. He should have known that by now.

Not long after, someone pays him a visit in his dreams.

This time, Percy is standing in the middle of a throne room. Not the one on Olympus, but the one under the sea.

It’s empty, and quiet. 

Percy feels the cool of the water, rippling and filling up the open, circular space. 

He’s been to Poseidon’s palace before, but never the actual throne room. It is simpler than he expected, with smooth, pockmarked walls and a sandy floor that dips a little in the middle. The throne itself is melded into the surrounding structure, woven out of cement, stone and anemone, and a mix of other elements that can be found in the sea. Seaweed curls up from the base and spirals along the back and edges of the seat, wild and elegant. Corals sit among the translucent blades, a spot of colour in an otherwise grey-hued room. Every surface has a slight sheen to it, courtesy of the water’s reflectiveness.

Percy is busy admiring his surroundings when suddenly, the water at the centre of the alcove begins to undulate like a heat wave, causing the view to the other side of the room to blur and distort. A figure steps out of the rippling pocket, trident first.

Percy is still staring in shock when Poseidon emerges and stands fully before him, the water portal gone. 

“Percy,” says Poseidon, and it jars him as he is momentarily brought back to the watery depths of his dream from before, when the ocean spoke to him. “How have you been?”

Percy takes a moment to recover. He can’t bring himself to meet his father’s eyes when he responds. “I’ve been doing fine. Good, actually.”

Poseidon nods. “That is good to hear.”

Percy glances up at him. He sees sea green eyes that twinkle, a trimmed beard, and hair that somehow still looks windswept at the bottom of the ocean. 

It is not what Percy expected to see. Although, to be fair, Percy doesn’t know what exactly he expected.

Poseidon’s gaze is kind, but it is guarded.

Something is on his mind. 

Percy can see it in the lines on his face, in the turn of his mouth. He wants to ask what’s wrong, but he doesn’t really think he wants to know the answer.

A flash of fondness briefly disarms Poseidon. “And how is your mother?”

Percy smiles. “She’s doing good. Working on her novel.”

Poseidon’s smile mirrors Percy’s, and it is the warm and enigmatic one that Percy is familiar with. He finds himself relaxing a little, inadvertently. 

But the smile melts away as quickly as it came––before Percy can rest easy––and a stoniness takes its place. “You know why I have summoned you here.”

It is not a question.

Percy swallows. “Because of the… prophecy?” 

“Yes.”

There it is again, that sinking feeling. 

Poseidon holds Percy’s gaze, and Percy recognises that look. He’s seen it splayed across Zeus’ face before, and Athena’s, and––he realises––Luke’s. He’s seen it on the mosaic in his dream. 

“A plan to reclaim power,” says Poseidon, hand on his trident. “I have let loose for too long. The Titan battle should have been my chance to reinstate myself, claim the credit that I––we––deserve.” His grip tightens. “You forget what you are capable of.”

Poseidon’s words jolt Percy as he tries to process what his father is saying. He doesn’t like where things are going. “But… Dad, what do you mean? Didn’t you basically save Olympus by helping the other gods defeat Typhon?”

“Precisely the point,” Poseidon retorts. He turns around, walks to his throne and sits down hard on it, trident hand outstretched. “ _I_ was the clincher, and so were you. Didn’t Kronos say you would have made a better vessel for him than Luke? He wasn’t wrong.”

Percy’s fists clench at his sides. “What are you trying to say?”

Poseidon lets out a sigh. He leans back on his throne, and looks his son in the eye. “The question, Percy, is who are you?”

Percy stares at his father, uncomprehending.

Poseidon’s eyes glint. “Have you ever thought seriously about that question before, Percy? Have you ever thought about your accomplishments, the offers made to you by gods and Titans alike?”

Percy opens his mouth, but no words come out.

“What would you do, if you really had to choose?”

Poseidon’s stare is sharp and penetrating. “Rejecting immortality wasn’t a difficult choice for you, because your fatal flaw is not _hubris_. You do not struggle with pride, or the desire for glory. You baffle the gods, even me.”

Percy feels exposed and tested under Poseidon’s discerning gaze. His words bounce around in Percy’s head, and Percy doesn’t know what to say, or how to react. What has any of this got to do with the prophecy?

“You are different, Percy, and that makes you powerful.”

“I’m not so different from anyone else,” says Percy, the words rolling off his tongue hard and swift. “I’m just a kid from Manhattan.”

“You are my son,” snaps Poseidon. “And you are a hero.”

Percy feels his hackles rising. “At what cost, Dad?” he bites back, and he can hear the harshness in his tone. “And for what? What is it all for, in the end?”

“War is pyrrhic, Percy,” says Poseidon, brow furrowed. “What did you hope would happen?”

Poseidon’s voice is not unkind, but his words still rub Percy the wrong way.

“I don’t know if the sacrifices are worth it.”

Poseidon does not immediately respond. He simply looks at Percy, gaze impenetrable.

“I don’t know if they will ever be worth it.” Percy stares at the floor, suddenly defeated. Years of carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders seem to catch up to him in that moment, silhouetting his face, his back, his limbs. 

Poseidon inclines his head and studies his son thoughtfully. “Then make up for it.”

The words send a jolt through Percy and his head jerks up. “What?”

Poseidon’s gaze is slick. “Find a way to make the sacrifices worth it. Fight for what you want to change.”

“Luke tried that and things didn’t exactly work out,” says Percy. He looks at his father doubtfully. “What could I possibly do?”

Poseidon’s face morphs with a beguiling smile. “Oh, you’d be surprised what you can do, once you find the right motivation.”

A chill runs down Percy’s spine. Something about the knot in his chest feels familiar––it is the same heightened sensation he felt when he stood before the mosaic with its towering heroes, the same unfolding in his chest, a rising tide of _something_ in the distance. 

Poseidon adjusts his grip on his trident and fixes Percy with a keen stare. His features are shrewd, the frame of his body strong and rugged, like he was shaped by the tides. His eyes hold the ocean.

“Brace yourself,” the sea god says.

Before Percy can react, Poseidon waves his free hand, and the dream dissolves into white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure, this fic is inspired by the song of achilles and is also the product of a few inter-related ideas i've been nursing for the better part of this year. if you've followed my blog since March you might know what i'm talking about. this is my first ever attempt at writing a multi-chapter fic so bear with me as i (inevitably) muddle my way through the process lol. i'm not fully satisfied with this first chapter, but i don't want to tinker with it any longer than i already have, so this is it. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed it, and hopefully you picked up on some of the references and thematic threads i've interspersed throughout the chapter ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> opening quote taken from "snow and dirty rain" by richard siken.
> 
> when i first started writing this chapter i was inspired by jersey's (aka @misskirby on tumblr) wips exploring percy's trauma and also by a host of other people who were putting out angst chapters of fic at the time lol (that were actually well-written). but that has since faded into the background, and i'm more driven by the general malaise that has overtaken my mental and psychological energies the past few years, but especially in the last year. so this fic is kind of an exploration / projection of that. as i said, this chapter is for all my fellow luke apologists (i am aware we are a minority), but also for everyone who loves percy (and other pacifist dystopian protagonists) and kinda wanna see him give in to the allure of "aren't you tired of being nice? don't you just wanna go ape shit?". it's quite heavy on the waxing of the philosophical, but the plot picks up after this, i promise, lol
> 
> –
> 
> *warning*: there is a brief (albeit delicate) description of the dynamics / emotional effects of an abusive relationship near the beginning of the chapter, so tread carefully!

* * *

_“I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling,_

_and they’re only a few steps behind you, finding_

_the flaw, the poor weld, the place they could almost_

_slip right through if the skin wasn’t trying to_

_keep them out, to keep them here, on the other side_

_of the theater where the curtain keeps rising.”_

* * *

Nightmares for Percy take the shape of memories, because all Percy wrestles with in the aftermath of war is the shadows it leaves behind. 

After the battle of Manhattan and Luke’s funeral where Annabeth wept silently by the pyre, something had shifted inside Percy. Watching Luke’s green shroud alight in flames, he felt a weight settle in his bones, felt the onset of a melancholy he could not outrun. 

Weight is not a strange thing to Percy. His whole life he has carried the gravity of others in his hands, held the pressure of a system that rejected him and ostracised him on his shoulders. It is not a burden so much as it is the very fibre of his being, a boy cut from the pull of the tides and a mother’s rough-hewn solitude. Whether by choice or by the hand that’s been dealt to him, Percy is nothing without the weight that he carries. 

In a twisted sort of way, he understands Atlas’ struggle. Not being able to put down the baggage on your shoulders is kind of Percy’s whole deal. At some point, Atlas and his burden become one and the same – inextricable.

And so Percy carries it, carries the promises of others and for others, carries their choices and their words and their feelings in the palm of his hand, on the curve of his back. He watched his mother carry it, a burden in the shape of loud fists and hard eyes, a sneering mouth and beer cans on the floor, scaffolded by walls that trap you and protect you at the same time. 

What is Atlas’ burden compared to this? What is the weight of the sky compared to bearing the scrape of insults, day in and day out, casual cruelty delivered with a calculating hand, a sword of Damocles hanging over your head and anger that threatens to carve its way into every inch of you? What is the weight of the sky, when Sally Jackson carried the weight of two people on her shoulders and never so much as grimaced or sighed, never looked at Percy with anything less than warmth and a smile, never showed how much she took with her each day? 

Percy learned it from her, the best and worst part of her. 

In some ways, he was already fit to be a hero. Because being a hero is all about knowing how to carry burdens, how to bear a weight on your shoulders and not let it consume you. It is the sky that people choose to step under, to take upon themselves and endure. 

Percy was fit to be a hero when his father met his mother on the shoreline of Montauk beach, where the vastness of the sea overwhelmed the earthly equanimity of land and your disquietude. He was fit to be a hero when his mother gave birth to him in a cabin facing the sea and nursed him for 6 days straight, singing lullabies and cradling him with arms that only know how to embrace. He was fit to be a hero when he collected bruises and bloody knuckles at school from fighting bullies who always had a bone to pick, who took out their anger on those weaker than them, whose sneers and brash tongues and blotchy white skin Percy could see in his mind’s eye, flashing in his periphery like spear points. When he stayed up late listening to his mother’s slow breathing across the hall, and watched, every night, for a burly silhouette moving along the wall the shape of which he’d memorised, he was cut out for it – the sweltering hot days in the arena and the target on his back, the gazes turned upon him and the promises he couldn’t keep, the nights he could feel the unspoken legacy of those before him settle on his shoulders. 

Percy eased into the role of hero as if stepping into the open ocean for the first time, held back by the comforting solidity of who he was and pulled forward by the force of who he could be. Who he was meant to be.

Lately, he keeps thinking about the conversation he had with Calypso when he was shipwrecked on her island, the memories of which have risen in his mind in the wake of the war and all the burial shrouds he had watched burn.

 _Are the Titans evil? All of them? All the time?_ , Calypso had questioned, soft features sharpening with the arrow of her indignance. 

It was the first time Percy had encountered someone he respects essentially back up Luke’s position in the war. Up till that point, he had kind of taken his side in the war for granted. He’d never given the politics of it much thought, and talking to Calypso had jarred him more than he let himself admit, even if it was a belated realisation. 

Percy knew he had a duty to fulfill, but that duty was to his friends and family, whom he could never abandon. He didn’t have the time or energy to think about the finer details, and it wasn’t his nature to dwell on those things, anyway. He knew Kronos was going to destroy everything he and countless other people hold dear, all for the sake of some twisted vision of retribution, and that was simply impermissible. He knew Luke was a cold-blooded backstabber who turned his back on his closest friends, something Percy would never understand nor forgive, even at the end. He knew he had to be there for his friends, who had done so much – _too_ much – for him, who had sacrificed themselves so that _he_ could live on and do what’s right. He knew his mother was waiting for him in their tiny apartment back in Manhattan, fingers laced together in worry. He knew he had to go back to her, at least. The rest was irrelevant.

But things are different now. Now, Calypso’s words shadow Percy’s every thought.

_Tell me, Percy. I have no wish to argue with you. But do you support the gods because they are good, or because they are your family? … You could stay with me, Percy. I’m afraid that is the only way you can help me._

And Hephaestus’ query under the crystalline darkness of the island’s cave, stirring uneasily in Percy’s chest: _Daedalus started well enough. He helped the Princess Ariadne and Theseus because he felt sorry for them. He tried to do a good deed. And everything in his life went bad because of it. Was that fair?_

Percy stares at the burning silk shrouds – blue, purple, red, green, all disappearing into the flames – and thinks of the faces of his friends, and he doesn’t like the answer that he finds.

* * *

The only respite Percy gets from his troubled thoughts and dreams is when he’s with Annabeth.

They hold hands in the strawberry fields, make out at the edges of the Camp’s forest, and sit in the amphitheatre watching the sunset. Percy loves the way the light hits the smooth planes of Annabeth’s face and illuminates strands of her golden hair. He could stare at the familiar cut of her features, softened by sunlight, for the rest of his life. Sometimes she turns around and cracks a smile, cheeks dimpling, and it lights up Percy’s field of vision better than the sun itself. Other times she simply closes her eyes and soaks up the sky’s last burst of warmth, resting her head on his shoulder as easily as if they’ve done this their whole lives. 

In these moments, Percy is most at peace. A stillness comes that is a welcome relief from the constant buzz in his head and heart, and he can’t get enough of it, even though he and Annabeth have spent an inordinate amount of time together and have seen each other’s worst sides more times than they care to count. He can’t get enough of Annabeth’s laugh, the way she makes him feel, her reckless confidence. It rubs off on people. It makes him want to be stronger, braver. 

Percy has never really thought much of himself, and if he were being honest, for a period of time he really didn’t like himself that much at all. But then he had met Annabeth, who challenged him and stood by his side in ways he never understood intellectually but always accepted instinctually, who never took the easy way out. However perplexing her actions could be, she nonetheless stood straight as an arrow, her staunchness orienting Percy like his intuitive grasp of his bearings at sea. In Percy’s mind, she was always running ahead of him, calling for him to catch up in that half-taunting way of hers, affecting superiority – but always, ultimately, slowing down to keep pace with him, to allow him to catch up.

That is what Percy loves most about Annabeth, in the end. She is as stubbornly loyal as he is, more daring and uncompromising, and smarter than she ever gives herself credit for. Percy looks at her and doesn’t think that he isn’t good enough; he looks at her and thinks, I have never felt more okay with just being myself.

“What are you thinking?” says Annabeth presently, leaning back on the step they’re lounging on in the amphitheatre. She reaches out and flicks a strand of Percy’s hair away from his forehead, lips quirking.

“How nice this is,” says Percy, mirroring Annabeth’s posture. The stone step feels warm and concrete under his skin. The sun descends into the horizon ahead of them, one small shuffle at a time. Everything is dappled yellow – the cluster of trees to the north, the crumbling stone arches of the amphitheatre, Annabeth’s eyelashes.

“Mmm,” says Annabeth, closing her eyes against the rays of the sun. Her pinky finger brushes against Percy’s, and she intertwines it with his. A few minutes drift by, languid, before she says, “You gonna tell me what’s on your mind?”

And, well, Percy had hoped he would get away with it this time. But of course, Annabeth had learned to read him too well. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I should.”

Annabeth opens her eyes – which have stayed closed the entire time – and frowns at Percy. Sunlight falls on one side of her face, casting the other in shadow. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t think you should’?”

Percy sighs and sits up straight, not meeting Annabeth’s eyes. “It’s… kind of complicated.”

“I can handle it.”

Percy shoots her a look. “Well, _I_ can’t.”

Annabeth looks at him sympathetically. “Tough being a child of the Big Three, huh?”

“Understatement of the year,” mutters Percy. 

“Well, if you don’t want to tell me, I respect that, but don’t do that thing where you bottle up your feelings and then forget they exist.”

Percy opens his mouth to protest, but Annabeth doesn’t let him. She presses a fingertip to his forehead and glares, “Don’t think just because I leave you alone that I’m letting you off the hook.”

“Yes, ma’am,” says Percy, ducking away from Annabeth’s finger and grabbing it to pull her over to him. She yelps as she topples forward into Percy’s space, his arm coming around her to secure her next to him. He grins in triumph and plants a kiss on her forehead. “I appreciate the gesture.”

Annabeth huffs against him. “This is gonna come back and bite you in the ass.”

“Don’t be mean.”

“I’ll do what I want.”

Percy smiles and tugs Annabeth closer, catching the scent of her lemon shampoo. They watch the sun dip into the skyline in silence.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


In dreams, the ocean beckons to Percy. 

It’s the same scene every night. Percy closes his eyes, and he’s standing on Montauk beach, barefoot and facing the horizon. Storm clouds fill the sky and thunder reverberates, tinging the salty air metallic.

Percy’s memory of Montauk is frustratingly weak. The last time he was there, it had been before he knew he was a demigod, and since then he hasn’t really had the time or wherewithal to visit again. To be perfectly honest, he hasn’t really thought about Montauk that much, given the events of his life.

What he remembers is more a feeling than a place – the calm that comes when he hears the waves before he sees them, the smell of salt and sand that lingers after he leaves, and most of all, the way his mum seems to change into her true form whenever they step onto the beach. Time seems to rewind, and she would be young again – not in appearance, but in spirit.

But even then there had been something sad in her ocean-turned gaze, something deeper and more complicated than Percy, being so young, could understand.

He thinks he gets it now, though. 

In the dreams, Percy is a kid again, running down the shoreline where the ocean meets the land, kicking up sand and saltwater, playing in the waves that seem to buoy him and break his fall.

 _Son of Poseidon. Earthshaker. Stormbringer._ The familiar tug in his gut. A rushing sound in his ears. The weight on his shoulders, like strong, expectant hands clasping down on him.

_Make up for it._

The tides rise, as if meeting the challenge. They are the same colour as Percy’s eyes. A chorus of waves and wind swells, pulling at the power locked inside Percy, as the moon tugs at the tides.

The dream always ends the same way, with the sky and sea embroiled in a storm. A deep voice resounds: _Remember your strength, Perseus. It shall not be squandered._

When Percy jolts awake, something stirs inexplicably inside him, the imprint of the dream lingering in his body even as the vision fades. 

It’s a strange sensation. Percy doesn’t quite know how to place it, only that it doesn’t feel entirely unpleasant. 

_Remember your strength_ , the voice had said. The words resemble what Chiron had told Percy during the battle of Manhattan, which feels so far away now, veiled by a haze of grief: _Remember your strengths and beware your weaknesses._

But this reminder feels more like a command than words of advice. Percy knows, in his gut, that it comes from his father, Poseidon. He just wished he knew why. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


**BEFORE**

  
  


When Luke ran away from home, he knew he would never return.

His chest ached as he went, whether from the sprinting or the sadness threatening to propel him back to the glowing house, he didn’t know. He didn’t care to know. He just needed to get away. Away from his mother’s burning green eyes and Hermes’ impregnable immortal gaze, away from the charred cookies and the sharp ring of prophecy. _Away._

Even then, fresh from his impetuous escape and still artless, Luke’s fate hung over him like the hand of an implacable god, ready to strike. The gods themselves looked down at him from their gilded hearth in disapproval, but also in wariness; they did not know exactly what Luke Castellan would do, but they had presided over enough demigod children across the generations to know that it would destabilise the order of things, and that had never been a tolerable prospect for the proud, deathless Olympians. 

Luke’s shadow elongated as he ran through the woods. The sun was setting in the southwest, its rays jagged through the watchful conifer trees. Luke’s backpack bumped against his spine, urging him forward with every inexorable step. It contained a change of clothes and a few meagre snacks he had grabbed from the kitchen, along with a knife. He had taken it on impulse, thinking a makeshift weapon was better than none. Now, the knowledge of its presence comforted him, eased a bit of his manic mind. It seemed the only stable, steadfast thing in Luke’s life now – he had no choice but to trust in it.

  
  


* * *

  
  


When Grover found the three demigods, they were in bad shape.

The girl with the strongest aura about her, sporting a crown of spiky black hair over piercing blue eyes, looked the least battered out of the three; Grover guessed that was the daughter of Zeus – Thalia. The two blonde kids he didn’t recognise, but he could tell they were demigods, too. They exuded an energy only demigods have, an invisible but palpable aura that indicated their divine lineage. 

The boy was piggybacking the little girl – who couldn’t have been older than eight or nine – and lagging behind Thalia just a little. He looked tired, but routinely glanced back at the little girl and smiled, out of fondness or reassurance, Grover couldn’t decide. Something else weighed on his mind.

Grover was tasked with guarding Thalia and escorting her back to Camp Half-Blood, ideally in one piece. He had not expected to find her with companions. Children of the Big Three usually manage to hold out on their own, given their power; more demigods means a higher likelihood of getting sniffed out by monsters, especially with a child of the Big Three in their midst. Grover knew he wasn’t equipped to protect three demigods at the same time, since he had set out looking only for one. He would be taking a huge risk, both for himself and for the half-bloods, if he tried to guide them back to Camp all at once. There was a high chance they might not make it back before the monsters that were undoubtedly chasing them caught up and overwhelmed them. But he couldn’t just leave the other two demigods behind.

For a brief moment, Grover panicked. Hidden from sight, he watched the two older demigods trudge through the foliage, keeping close together and ever vigilant, like a well-oiled team. At one point, Thalia slowed down to let her friend pass, so she could guard his rear, and the little girl. There was a hard, undaunted look in her shrewd blue eyes, masking a weariness that seeped out in other ways – in the tension in her shoulders, in the curve of a fist clenched around a makeshift walking stick. 

Grover made up his mind, then. He had to find a way to escort them all to Camp. It was the only right thing to do. It seemed absurd to him, in that moment, that there could have been any other option he would have chosen.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The last thing Luke saw was a hellhound sinking its teeth into Thalia’s shoulder, and then the world tilted around him, his vision tunnelling. A hoarse cry escaped his throat. He twisted around, stumbled, fell, blind and emptied of every coherent instinct but one. He had to get to her. He had to stop her, though he knew it was already too late. Hal’s voice rose and echoed through the turmoil of his mind –

_Someday soon, you will sacrifice yourself to save your friends… You will stand tall and still, alive but sleeping… Your path will be sad and lonely. But someday you will find your family again._

The brutal ambiguity of prophecies. You do not know where or when the double-edged blade of their verse will fall, until fate is unfolding before your very eyes and all you can do is watch, arrested, in dumb-stricken horror. 

Luke had scrambled halfway up the hill when the beam of light spilled from the sky, unbearably white, directly onto the spot where Thalia had stood just moments ago. Luke had to turn away from the searing glow of it to avoid being blinded. When his eyes re-adjusted from the shock, the monsters were gone, and where there should’ve been a spike-haired girl with shield and armour standing at the top of the hill, there was instead a pine tree, its trunk rising stout and resolute in the settling dust, as if it had been there since the beginning of time.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
**AFTER**

Luke doesn’t remember a time when he was innocent. 

His childhood – shot through with bouts of fear and confusion – had been brief and insignificant. He remembers flashes, isolated moments of warmth and happiness, a mother’s fleeting touch on his cheek. Fragments of a past unsullied by anger, disillusionment, and bitterness, which run through everything like the central thread of a tapestry, an organising principle.

Losing Thalia had been, very possibly, the thing that rendered the trajectory of his life irreversible. An arrow had been nocked by defiance and fear, and then released by grief. Luke has never quite moved past the second stage of mourning, anger. Though he did end up making a bargain that cost him his life, and many others.

Luke doesn’t remember when his resentment had sharpened into anger, then morphed into the keen edge of enmity. All he remembers is waking up every day in a dull state of weariness, a blend of anger and sadness shadowing every action, thought, decision. He got so used to suppressing it, like taking painkillers, that he almost believed it went away.

Annabeth was the only person who kept him sane some days, unbeknownst to her, of course. Luke, by turns, marvelled at and envied her naivete. He could see some of Thalia in her – her pointed gaze, her stubbornness. He wondered if Annabeth ever felt sad when she looked at the pine tree atop Half-Blood Hill. He wondered if she ever felt angry.

Luke harboured bitterness like a dagger being honed. Intentionally or not, he held it close by, nursed it, never lost sight of it. He became quite good at hiding it, keeping it away from others, unsheathing it only at night, in the privacy of seclusion.

Everything was a cruel reminder of his broken home, his essential fugitive status, his deprivations. He watched the gods fail to claim child after child, the Hermes cabin turning into a permanent holding centre for demigods not important enough even for simple acknowledgement. He watched many of them, nonetheless, find a home in Camp Half-Blood, or at least a place of refuge, eager to belong, however flawed that manner of belonging was. In this way, he watched Annabeth drift further and further away from him as her connection to Camp grew. After all, she had never known any other home – a real, permanent home that wasn't transitory and constantly at threat of falling apart.

Luke had hoped, once, that he would find a home at Camp Half-Blood, that all the running and fighting and fending for himself and his friends would have been worth it, if this place could redeem the past, could redeem _him_.

And then Thalia had died, sacrificed herself, got turned into a tree. How many nights he’d spent there, those first few weeks, sitting among her roots, trying to find the words that would undo the spell and reclaim her life, miraculously. 

Eventually, he stopped going. Eventually, she became just a tree, standing in the distance. A protective barrier. An abstract entity. A memory. 

Annabeth and the campers grew up. He grew up. The pain dulled, slunk away into the back corners of Luke’s mind. He trained, and trained. More demigods came in, more were left unclaimed. They were taught to fight, anyway, even though they didn’t quite know what they were fighting for, or against.

Luke came close to a real possibility of contentment sometimes. In the dining pavilion, surrounded by people who looked up to him, and, indeed, loved him, he would feel a warm, bright sensation tickle his chest – the knowledge, repressed but surging forth, of community and solidarity. In these moments, Luke would come tantalisingly close to some semblance of peace, of true happiness. He would glimpse, however fleetingly, the simple pleasures of home and hearth, and almost accept them, gladly.

But bitterness festers in you like an untreated wound. It is very difficult to fight resentment that has already taken root, that has already dug its way into your bones, poised like a drawn arrow. They say it is like poison, corroding you from the inside. 

The only thing Luke was ever a victim of was his own pride, his own thirst for power. Revenge, yes, even righteousness, but what it really was was spite – anger, well-founded, that hardened into egotism. Five years was too long, or not long enough. That initial grief had never gone away; it came back in nightmares, always of a glowing house, or glowing eyes, or a glowing column of light that suffused everything with a whiteness that stung and gaped, vacant, intrusive. Inescapable.

By the time Percy arrived at Camp Half-Blood, all the finer emotions had blunted and ossified into a low-rumbling malice, the dagger honed and ready to be drawn. _Backbiter_. Betrayal. 

Perhaps if Kronos had never exploited his hard feelings. Perhaps if Thalia had never died. Perhaps if Annabeth, or anyone else, had shared in his sense of alienation, his corrosive bitterness. Perhaps if the gods had tried a little harder.

Luke stands with a dagger in his hand and does not know anyone.

* * *

Percy dreams of crumbling mosaics, impassive gods, and losing his friends. He dreams of being trapped in the labyrinth, alone, unable to remember if he had entered on his own or if he had strayed from his friends along the way. He dreams of losing Annabeth to the Sirens, failing to save Grover in time, leaving Beckendorf to die. Bianca, Silena, Ethan, Michael, and all the demigods whose names he didn’t know who perished in the war, stalking his dreams. All the people he could have saved, but didn’t. All the promises he couldn’t keep. He had lived, and they had died. And for what?

It doesn’t get easier with time. On the contrary, it feels like the war was only just catching up to Percy, after the dust had settled. He keeps seeing the strewn bodies on the mosaic tiles, a nameless mass. Luke’s voice echoes in his head, as well as Poseidon’s. _Don’t let it happen again. Remember your strength. War is pyrrhic._

Percy wakes up with anger in his chest. He can’t tell if it’s his own, or that of the dead and unavenged. Maybe it doesn’t matter. In any case, the dead are gone, whether at rest or not, while the living deal with the endless aftermath.

Annabeth senses that something is wrong, of course she does, but she doesn’t broach the subject. She knows Percy needs his space when he’s in a funk like this. Still, the weariness in his shoulders worries her. He’s not telling her something, and one day soon it’s going to rear its ugly head, like it always does. The air around Percy has a tightness to it, like an elastic band pulled taut. His features are set in a scowl, unusual for Percy, whose face is sculpted by a soft but sure hand and is always warm, even when disturbed. It stirs up unease in Annabeth, as if some irritable god is hovering over him, whispering in his ear.

Percy, for the most part, is too distracted to hang around anyone for very long. He feels a little guilty for avoiding Annabeth, but he’s afraid being with her would compel him to spill the beans, and his gut tells him that that isn’t really a good idea. Something about his dreams, the visions and voices, feels too disturbing, too murky, still, to be shared, even if – especially if – it’s with Annabeth. 

It’s also the fear, repressed, that she wouldn’t be able to understand. She had been there, of course, for all of it, and in the end she had been more of a hero, perhaps, than Percy was. But her pressure point isn’t personal loyalty. She doesn’t inherit the legacy of prophecy heroes and all the extra baggage that comes with it, not really. Her mother is the goddess of crafts and war; to an extent, she’s built for this, immunised against its brutality.

Percy’s different. He lives with ghosts. Guilt and grief trail after him like shadows, the imprint of the curse of Achilles in its most fundamental sense. Nobody ever stops to think about what lay behind Achilles’ anger: an emotional landscape ravaged by loss, reflecting the bloody battlefield he fights on. It eats away at him slowly, like maggots feeding on something rotted and sweet.

But Percy is no Achilles, or Herakles. He is not much like his namesake, Perseus, either. Chiron, back when he was posing as Percy’s classics teacher, Mr. Brunner, had talked about the _Iliad_ and its various characters, gods and mortals alike. If Percy were any character from the _Iliad_ , or the Greek canon in general, he would be Patroclus, kind and peaceful and brave. Patroclus, an odd figure to place at the turning point of a story about war and bloodshed. Patroclus, who, for all his placidity, rode into battle disguised as Achilles and thus precipitated the end of the war. He had died. Percy still stands.

It’s possible for disillusionment to come from nothing but the insipid lull of unchanging everyday conditions. Percy feels it in the weariness that has slid over him, diffuse and invisible, like a second skin. A suppressed frustration underlies it all, as well, that has been building for a much longer time. Now that there’s nothing to distract Percy from the feelings that he’s put on the backburner all these years, they’re all brimming to the surface in sluggish but insistent ways. There is not such a slippery slope between a sense of aggrievement and perverse behaviour as people think, and Percy is evidence of this. But when the world over-relies on heroes to save it, time and time again, on proverbial “good people” to do all the work, they tend to either die in the manner of Patroclus (of Bianca, Silena, Beckendorf), or live and grow jaded like Percy. A harmless, even sobering, process when not mixed with ego, but that is not the only catalyst that can turn disenchantment volatile.

Poseidon knows this. Hermes knew this. Percy will know it, too, soon.

Maybe this time, unlike before, it would be justified.


End file.
